


Dragon's Breath

by Yuki1014o



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Relationship Study, also snow, explorations of Feitan's seemingly chinese-esk background, lots of snow, that's the fic, to a degree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:42:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuki1014o/pseuds/Yuki1014o
Summary: "But," Feitan says, and can't quite seem to find the words. But apparently no oneelseis going to bring this up so he needs to. "It's a..." Feitan squints, "tornado out of here.""Blizzard," Chrollo corrects, easy smile. And it isn't demeaning, not really, never is with Chrollo, but Feitan scowls anyway.//OR: Chrollo is, as usual, a wildcard, there's never been snow in Meteor, and Feitan doesn't like the cold.
Relationships: Feitan & Kuroro Lucifer | Chrollo Lucifer
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	Dragon's Breath

"We're stopping here," Chrollo says, serene smile on his face, and Shalnark pulls the breaks so abruptly that the old shuttering truck almost capsizes. It's very loud and unpleasant and Phinks yells right into Feitan's ear.

Feitan scowls, juts his elbow into Phinks stomach and ignores the choking. "What," he says, voice flat, because they're in the middle of actual nowhere. On either side of the truck stretch empty white fields of snow.

"What he said!" Shalnark chirps, and flicks off the heating, and swings the door wide open. 

Machi's whole face freezes over. "Did you plan this?"

Shalnark, like the goddamn _devil_ he is, beams. Like nothing is wring about this. Like they haven't just driven nine straight hours cramped into a too-small kind of old truck. For—for _this_. " _We_ planned this! Why," he says, gesturing to Chrollo, who's still got a small serene smile on his face, which definitely means he's laughing at all of them. Feitan would know. "Chrollo agreed, of course! In fact, he said it was a _magnificent_ idea!"

Feitan shivers, and looks out the window into the blue-white haze. The cold air from the open door has steadily crawled through his trench coat and past his scarf and it's _cold_. Cold like nothing Feitan's ever really felt before.

"But," Feitan says, and can't quite seem to find the words. But apparently no one _else_ is going to bring this up so he needs to. "It's a..." Feitan squints, "tornado out of here."

"Blizzard," Chrollo corrects, easy smile. And it isn't demeaning, not really, never is with Chrollo, but Feitan scowls anyway.

"He has a point," Pakunoda says, "we could get sick."

"We'll only be out for a bit," Shalnark explains, and since out of the nine of them Shalnark and Machi are by far the most medically knowledgeable, Feitan kind of trusts this, "also" Shalnark continues, "we can just threaten a doctor."

Feitan scoffs. "You trust?"

"Well..." Shalnark says, and looks contemplative for just a moment, "good point. But c'mon! This is the first time any of you except Paku's been in snow right? It's gonna be _fun_."

A beat.

"We're too tough for cold," Uvogin eventually says, looking like he's decided this, stating it like fact. Which is _very_ stupid, but Franklin nods like this makes any sense at all and Nobunaga pauses only a moment before agreeing, and they're all _stupid_.

But four more doors are open before Feitan can say anything at all, and the cold hits him much harder than any of the sweltering, plastic-melting, skin-flaying, days at Meteor ever did, and— "Tā mā de! Cào nǐ zǔzōng shíbā dài! Bèn dàn!"

Phinks snickers, already out of the car. "Sorry, what was that?"

Feitan glares. "Fuck you," he says, because last time he translated it directly and called Phinks a _stupid egg_ , he laughed at him, and _fuck you_ , is a good enough substitute for most things.

Phinks laughs anyway, because he's Phinks, and Feitan slams the car door shut and stays inside. And then closes the other car doors, because _really_.

The inside of car is also cold now, though. And Feitan, who' accustomed the most sweltering, radioactive, black-tar covered areas of Meteor _hates_ it.

A minute, then two.

The car door creaks back open.

Feitan shoots out a hand and tries to pull it back, but whoever on the other end is strong and firm and isn't taking no as an answer.

"The door will break like this," Chrollo says, and Feitan finally looks over and, after a moment, lets go. "It really isn't that bad," Chrollo says, extending a hand.

And Feitan—Feitan takes it.

It's very cold outside the car, even colder than _inside_ the car. The snow hits against his forehead and melts onto his eyelashes and wind blows icily through his hair. He buries himself even deeper into his scarf, but it isn't nearly thick enough, and his nose feels so cold it's almost numb but not quite, so it still _hurts_.

"Not true," Feitan says. "Much worse."

"It can be fun," Chrollo says, and Feitan pulls down the sleeves of his trench coat and snorts.

"In a dream."

Chrollo leans back against the side of the truck. Hums.

Feitan could circle around to the other side of the vehicle and climb right back in. The wind is icy in his hair and the snow is cold and abrasive on his skin, and he's heard frostbite can make fingers have to be cut off. His fingers are freezing, and the snow's piled halfway up his calves. But—but Chrollo's hum sounded a little like _stay_ , and it was Chrollo that pulled him out of a trashslide, and Chrollo who gave him any more purpose than just existing, so.

They stay there for a little while.

Then—then a solid ball of snow hits against the side of his head, and it melts on his skin and trickles down his cheeks and into his scarf and onto his neck, makes the fabric all cold and sticky and oh.

 _Oh_.

Feitan leans down and scoops up a ball of snow with his own bare hands—cold, cold, _cold_ —colder than anything Feitan's ever touched before, but he's held Meteor's skin-flaying chunks of asphalt before, and this is just a different kind of burn.

"Chī shǐ!" Feitan yells, and hurls the ball right at Phinks' face.

Phinks blocks the snow and throws another one—this one Feitan avoids, and he can hear Chrollo laughing behind him even as he runs towards Phinks and the rest.

Now that they're closer, Phinks calls, "You say something?"

Feitan snarls, "Eat shit _and_ die!" Then scoops up another bunch of snow and throws it, but apparently he didn't pack it tight enough, or maybe he should've held it together with nen, cause it breaks apart in the air and blows right back into his face.

Phinks laughs at him, because of course he does. But he also kicks Shalnark, who started this whole mess in the first place, down into the snow. So—well.

Well.

It—isn't actually that... _terrible_. It's still stupid and horrible and he still hates it, there's still snow in his scarf and ice on his cheeks, he's still cold down to his bone. But his blood is hot beneath his skin and now it's him and Shalnark and Phinks against Franklin and Uvogin and Nobunaga, with Pakunoda and Machi fighting both sides of the field, and—

And somewhere behind them Chrollo is laughing, and the storm— _blizzard_ , like _Bàofēngxuě_ —has let up. So it's still a little windy and still stupidly cold, but snow is more floaty, softer, like little bits of frozen cloud.

And—

and at some point Feitan trips, and falls and the whole world spins 'till he's looking at the cloudy gray sky, and in the distance he can see a peak of forget-me-not blue on the edge of the storm. The snow sinks beneath him—like some rich-man's mattress. It falls on him, too, and it should be cold, it really should be, and it _is_ , too some degree. It's cool beyond his clothing, icy, but—but it's also a little like a blanket. Not warm, not really, but something similar.

Feitan breathes in, breathes out. His breath comes out in a cloud.

The air is cold and fresh and clear, tastes like pine and snow, and all of this is so entirely different from Meteor that Feitan doesn't really know what to do. Meteor—doesn't really have any places like this, where you can lay down and do nothing, where you can look at the sky and see anything but the blazing sun. It's a place where the ground burns and the air is more smog than anything else. Where all he hears all the time is the shriek of crows and the scuttle of rats, the creak of an unstable trash hill, the moans of the dying and yells of the angry.

Feitan...doesn't love Meteor. Not like Chrollo does, not like Phinks or Shalnark do. But Meteor is still home, even if only some pockets of people speak his language, even if most of them don't. Meteor is still home.

Feitan breathes in, breathes out

(Meteor is where he met Chrollo, where he met Shalnark and Phinks.)

His breath puffs up in a white cloud. Like the breath of a western dragon, or the call of an eastern one.

Somewhere in the distance, kind of muffled by the snow, Phinks is yelling and Shalnark is cheering and Chrollo is laughing. More distant than that, Machi and Pakunoda are talking threats and black market economics. Beyond that, Franklin and Nobunaga and Uvogin are booming something intelligible.

Feitan closes his eyes, and listens.

(He'd throw any of them away in a heartbeat for the spider—but, well, that's the thing, isn't it? For the _spider_. For something larger than himself, for the purpose that Chrollo gave him.)

He stays like that for a while.

"Hey," a voice eventually sounds, and when Feitan peeks open his eyes Chrollo is standing over him. A close-lipped smile stretches across Chrollo's face, and his eyes are full with some kind of mirth that Feitan can't quite place.

"Gǔn dàn," Feitan says, voice a little raspy.

Chrollo chuckles, just a bit, eyes glinting, "Wǒ bù huì."

Feitan huffs. More show than anything, really. Because Feitan never expected Chrollo to fuck off, and his denial was expected. _I will not_ , a little stilted, pronunciation a bit off, but—good enough.

"You'll get sick like this," Chrollo says. "It's been a few hours."

"Maybe," Feitan says, but doesn't move.

A beat.

Chrollo shifts, glances up at the sky, where the clouds have cracked open and the sun is shining through. "What are you thinking about?"

He breathes in, breathes out. Watches the breath puff up in a white cloud.

"...Dragon's breath."

Chrollo huffs out a cloud himself. "It does look a little like that."

Feitan hums.

"We can steal some," Chrollo says.

Feitan squints his eyes, just a little. "Steal what?"

"Dragons," Chrollo answers, tilting his head. "There's a flock in the Shénshèng Mountains that are having their clutches."

Feitan shakes his head, scattering the snow that's settled on his nose. There would be a market for stolen eggs, of course there'd be a market for them, but dragons bring the rain and give good luck and only lay once a century, and are Feitan's peoples' Gods so— "No."

"Their pearls, then?" Chrollo asks, and Feitan shakes his head again.

"No dragons," Feitan says, because he still speaks his people's language, and maybe he doesn't know his original country, not really, but he was raised by a pocket of immigrants, and sure they all died, all burnt alive in an oil fire, but Feitan still carries that culture. And he'll do (has done) a lot of things but he won't steal a dragon's pearl or pawn a whelp. "Will be a huài dàn. Bad luck. Sacred."

"I see," Chrollo says, even though there's no way he could, not really. Not entirely. "Like stealing from a church."

Feitan pauses, furrows his brows. "Maybe," he says, "kind of."

"And paintings?" Chrollo asks.

"That's fine."

Chrollo smiles, extends a hand. "Let's go, then?"

Feitan eyes the hand, and doesn't smile, not really, but huffs something close to a laugh, and takes Chrollo's hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Tā mā de! Cào nǐ zǔzōng shíbā dài! Bèn dàn! Dammit! Fuck your ancestors to an innumerable generation! Stupid egg! (Stupid egg meaning "moron" or "idiot" ect)  
> Chī shǐ! Eat shit!  
> Bàofēngxuě blizzard  
> Gǔn dàn. Rolling egg. (basically "fuck off".)  
> Wǒ bù huì. I will not.  
> Shénshèng Sacred  
> huài dàn bad egg. (Bad egg meaning "wicked person" or "bad person" ect)
> 
> Hopefully my Chinese translation weren't terrible :') I speak approximately 0 Chinese so it was a mix of google translate and Chinese translation sites. Anyhow. This was kinda just the product of a conversation between me and [nekoturtle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekoturtle/pseuds/Nekoturtle) about how meteor seemingly has no winter and man wouldn't feitan's first meeting with snow be fun?
> 
> Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed! As always, I welcome constructive criticism, and comments are always appreciated <3


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